Category Archives: All Things Food

So I am writing this a little late – mainly because I was mainly eating on my own (as OH didn’t fancy ANY of the food I had planned!) and I got treated to a couple of meals for doing some extra bits and pieces for people. My £25 food budget ended up lasting me two weeks and I topped up during this week (10-16 July) with some impromptu snack foods as I was working super late one night and had run out of food and a trip to McDonalds >.< so I've probably spent around £50 over the two weeks.

I did the majority of my food prep in one day whilst I was doing some paperwork at home. I did have a couple of cravings for certain foods which I made using stuff I already had so I didn't buy any additional ingredients (10/10 for sticking to the budget for me!).

So first off I cooked my gammon joint from Aldi. I used this recipe from Feisty Tapas and then made a delicious gammon and vegetable soup based on Feisty Tapas’ recipe here. I added a few more veggies to clear out what I had left in the fridge and to bulk it out a little more as well as adding a cinnamon stick, star anise and Sichuan peppercorns for extra flavour. I really do recommend this recipe – it’s so delicious and I love using my new Instant Pot.

I used about a third of the gammon joint to slice back up and put in the soup and I sliced the rest to use for another meal.

The night before I marinated my chicken drumsticks. I marinated half in a BBQ sauce I had lying around and the other half I did my own marinade of soy sauce, fish sauce, honey, pepper, chilli, garlic powder and some smoked paprika. I then roasted these and took the meat off the bone for meals, sandwiches or salads in the week.

At the same time I roasted some new potatoes and carrots to go alongside some meals.

Whilst the oven was still on, I also roasted my lamb leg with some courgette slices. I put garlic pieces in little slits all over the lamb leg and then covered with salt, pepper and mint sauce.

Midway through the week I had a craving for a creamy pasta bake. I made a cheese sauce from scratch using a bechamel base (flour, butter, milk). I used some water in place of some of the milk to reduce the calories a little bit. I threw in some of the chicken, a slice of gammon as well as broccoli and cauliflower and some pasta we had in the cupboard. Placed it in the oven for around 20-30 minutes until golden brown and served it with homemade garlic bread. I had made a homemade loaf but forgot to take a photo! To make the garlic bread, I toasted it before putting a mix of butter, garlic powder and chopped garlic and placing it in the oven for the last 5 minutes.

I also had a super craving for congee late one night after work which I also forgot to take a photo of as it was so late and I was a little hangry. I based my recipe on this one from Pressure Cook Recipes. As I used the chicken I cooked earlier, I reduced the cooking time a little to just cook the rice through. I added preserved Tianjin vegetables and some pieces of spam I had sliced in the freezer from the last time we had hotpot. Really delicious.

As of today, I still have some leftover pieces of lamb and gammon and some frozen veggies and potatoes. My next post will be on some of the meals I’ve eaten over the last couple of weeks.

As promised, here is my food shop and meal plan for the upcoming week. If you read my update post, you’ll know that I’m preparing myself for a sharp drop in income so I will be curbing my spending and eating more at home.

To prepare for my food shop, I went online to both Asda (as my flatmate has 10% discount) and Aldi (where I live, they are around the corner from each other and only a 5 minute drive from me) to see what special offers there were on meat and vegetables. I then decided which meats I wanted to use and compared them to each other to make sure I was getting the best price. My aim for the shop was £25.

In total, I spent £16.68 at Aldi and £7.49 (after discount) at Asda, giving me a grand total of £24.17. I had also planned to get some cherries from Aldi but they were sold out. I still have some avocados, a couple of carrots & potatoes, some smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes from last week’s shop so they will be used up in the next couple of days. I could have been even more under target if I didn’t choose lamb but I have a bad roast dinner craving and I can use the leftovers in sandwiches and whatnot in the week. I can pick up some eggs and rice for free so I will probably top up these at some point too.

Meal Plan

I no longer assign meals to days as I’ve found I’m less likely to follow the meal plan if it’s too rigid! Therefore, breakfasts on my list consist of avocado toast with eggs and tomatoes, granola/cereal with milk or beans on toast with a veggie.

Breakfast was some dry curiously cinnamon cereal (trying to clear out the cupboards a bit!) with a ham sandwich.

Lunch was half of this stewed aubergine dish and white rice (shared it with my sister) and a clementine.

Sorry for the dodgy lighting! Snack was this ham salad from Asda and a flat peach (not pictured) as I was having dinner made by my ex and he wasn’t home until quite late.

Dinner was nachos with jalapeños, salsa and cheese. I ate about a quarter of this and was absolutely stuffed!

So overall, not really a fantastic day. Will definitely strive to do better in my next What I Ate post! I’m really struggling to find a balance of healthy eating and working 70-80 work weeks at the moment. If you have any tips, please leave them below!

Just a quick meal plan for next week. It’s a bit loose-y goose-y as I’ll be visiting a friend Thursday/Friday and on the weekend I just eat at work as I work 12+ hour shifts. On another random note, I have decided not to follow a certain diet plan and try and eat healthy without the counting. Not sure how it’s going to turn out, but we’ll see!

Breakfasts:

Cereal, semi skimmed milk & bacon sandwich

Spinach and mushroom omelette

Porridge with blueberries, chia seeds & agave syrup

Lunch/Dinners:

Chinese pork belly stew with mooli, carrots and yam with brown rice

Baked salmon and roasted vegetables

Snacks:

Fruit: donut peaches, nectarines, clementines & strawberries

Crudities and hummus

Ham & cucumber roll ups

Those who have been following my blogs for a while know that when I have a strict meal plan, my mind loves to rebel and I never feel like eating what’s on the menu! So I like to have a few meals planned and prepped so I can eat it if I fancy – less waste that way. If I have time on the Monday when I’m meal prepping, I’ll see if I can photograph the process of the pork belly stew. It’s so delicious and reminds me of my Grandma 🙂

Just a quick one today as I want to explain the change in types of posts in the next couple of months.

My plan is from Thursday I will be doing a juice diet for a week to prepare me for going back onto Cambridge. As much as I have enjoyed my food and still losing weight, my work schedule is going to be more crazy than usual so not having to think through meal planning and meal prep will be one less thing to worry about! Having the meal replacement will just be extra speedy for me and hopefully help me get the pounds off a teeny bit faster.

I’m going on holiday just after my 26th birthday in April so I would like to have lost at least a stone to a stone and a half by then. Obviously as I will be doing Cambridge, there will be less of a focus on food shops as there won’t really be many. I am expecting to go back to Step 2 which is what I was on which involves a small meal each day of protein and vegetables but nothing major apart from that.

I’ll be restarting Cambridge next Friday. I still have quite a few sachets left from last time so I won’t be getting too many I don’t think. Hopefully the juice diet will give me a good boost for Cambridge as I do find it difficult to stick to. Hopefully combined with my heavy workload and being less of an emotional wreck will help!

So yes, not the greatest start to the week – actually it’s been pretty bad. I’m going to have to buck myself up for the rest of the week if I want to get into the next stone bracket which I really would love to do next week.